# Topics and Trends in Most Cited Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Papers, Class of 2026

*Canonical URL: https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/cancer-genomics-and-diagnostics/2026*

## What topics and trends defined most-cited Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics research in the Class of 2026?

Among early-high-impact cancer genomics and diagnostics papers, tumor microenvironment, precision medicine, digital pathology, and whole-genome sequencing dominate the Class of 2026 cohort. Whole-genome sequencing, precision medicine, and colorectal cancer rose sharply versus Class of 2025, while tumor evolution, NSCLC, liquid biopsy, circulating tumor DNA, and prognosis-focused studies declined most.

## At a glance

| Fact | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Field | Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics |
| Cohort label | Class of 2026 (2024 publications) |
| Papers analyzed | 10,203 |
| Papers ranked | 20 |
| Top topics in ranked papers | Tumor microenvironment, precision medicine, digital pathology, whole-genome sequencing |
| Publication window | Jan 1, 2024 – Dec 31, 2024 |
| Eligibility | Research articles; reviews excluded |
| Citation window | 18 months post-publication |
| 18m citation range | 88–418 |
| Data source | OpenAlex · Retrieved Jul 2026 |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |

## Rankings

| Rank | Title | Authors | Corresponding authors | Affiliation | Journal | 18m citations | DOI |
| ---: | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---: | --- |
| 1 | Genomic data in the All of Us Research Program | Manuscript Writing Group, Alexander G. Bick, Ginger Metcalf, Kelsey Mayo, Lee Lichtenstein, Shimon Rura, Robert J. Carroll, Anjene Musick, Jodell E. Linder, I. King Jordan, Shashwat Deepali Nagar, Shivam Sharma, Robert Meller, Melissa Basford, Eric Boerwinkle, Mine Cicek, Kimberly F. Doheny, Evan E. Eichler, Stacey Gabriel, Richard A. Gibbs, David Glazer, Paul A. Harris, Gail P. Jarvik, Anthony Philippakis, Heidi L. Rehm, Dan M. Roden, Stephen N. Thibodeau, Scott Topper, Biobank, Mayo, Ashley L. Blegen, Samantha J. Wirkus, Victoria A. Wagner, Jeffrey G. Meyer, Mine Cicek, Donna M. Muzny, Eric Venner, Michelle Mawhinney, Sean Griffith, Elvin Hsu, Hua Ling, Marcia K. Adams, Kimberly Walker, Taobo Hu, HarshaVardhan Doddapaneni, Christie Kovar, Mullai Murugan, Shannon Dugan, Ziad Khan, Eric Boerwinkle, Niall J. Lennon, Christina Austin‐Tse, Eric Banks, Michael Gatzen, Namrata Gupta, Emma Henricks, Katie Larsson, Sheli McDonough, Steven M. Harrison, Christopher Kachulis, Matthew S. Lebo, Cynthia L. Neben, Marcie Steeves, Alicia Y. Zhou, Joshua D. Smith, Christian D. Frazar, Colleen Davis, Karynne Patterson, Marsha M. Wheeler, Sean McGee, Christina M. Lockwood, Brian H. Shirts, Colin C. Pritchard, Mitzi L. Murray, Valeria Vasta, Dru F. Leistritz, M Richardson, Jillian G. Buchan, Aparna Radhakrishnan, Niklas Krumm, Brenna Ehmen, Sophie Schwartz, M. Morgan T. Aster, Kristian Cibulskis, Andrea Haessly, Rebecca Asch, Aurora Cremer, Kylee Degatano, Akum Shergill, Laura D. Gauthier, Samuel K. Lee, Aaron Hatcher, George Grant, Genevieve R. Brandt, Miguel Covarrubias, Eric Banks, Ashley Able, Ashley E. Green, Robert J. Carroll, Jennifer Zhang, Henry Robert Condon | Alexander G. Bick | Vanderbilt University Medical Center, United States | Nature | 418 | 10.1038/s41586-023-06957-x |
| 2 | A foundation model for clinical-grade computational pathology and rare cancers detection | Eugene Vorontsov, Alican Bozkurt, Adam Casson, George Shaikovski, Michal Zelechowski, Kristen Severson, Eric Zimmermann, James M. Hall, Neil Tenenholtz, Nicolò Fusi, Ellen Yang, Philippe Mathieu, Alexander van Eck, Donghun Lee, Julian Viret, E.BETZ ROBERT, Yi Kan Wang, Jeremy D. Kunz, Matthew C. H. Lee, Jan Bernhard, Ran Godrich, Gerard J. Oakley, Ewan K.A. Millar, Matthew G. Hanna, Hannah Y. Wen, Juan Antonio Retámero, William A. Moye, Razik Yousfi, Christopher Kanan, David S. Klimstra, Brandon Rothrock, Siqi Liu, Thomas J. Fuchs | Siqi Liu, Thomas J. Fuchs | Paige, United States | Nature Medicine | 272 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03141-0 |
| 3 | Recommendations for the use of next-generation sequencing (NGS) for patients with advanced cancer in 2024: a report from the ESMO Precision Medicine Working Group | M.F. Mosele, C. Benedikt Westphalen, A Stenzinger, Fabrice Barlési, Ariane Bayle, Ivan Bièche, Jean-François Bonastre, Elena Castro, R. Dienstmann, A. Krämer, Anna M. Czarnecka, Funda Meric‐Bernstam, Stefan Michiels, Rowan Miller, Nicola Normanno, Jorge S. Reis‐Filho, Jordi Remón, Mark E. Robson, E. Rouleau, Aldo Scarpa, C. Serrano, Joaquı́n Mateo, Fabrice André | Fabrice André | Gustave Roussy, France | Annals of Oncology | 230 | 10.1016/j.annonc.2024.04.005 |
| 4 | A Cell-free DNA Blood-Based Test for Colorectal Cancer Screening | Daniel C. Chung, Darrell M. Gray, Harminder Singh, Rachel B. Issaka, Victoria M. Raymond, Craig Eagle, Sylvia Hu, Darya Chudova, AmirAli Talasaz, Joel K. Greenson, Frank A. Sinicrope, Samir Gupta, William M. Grady | William M Grady | Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Canada | New England Journal of Medicine | 214 | 10.1056/nejmoa2304714 |
| 5 | Precision treatment in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma | Xupeng Yang, Chen Yang, Shu Zhang, Haigang Geng, Andrew X. Zhu, René Bernards, Wenxin Qin, Jia Fan, Cun Wang, Qiang Gao | Jia Fan, Cun Wang, Qiang Gao | Fudan University, China | Cancer Cell | 197 | 10.1016/j.ccell.2024.01.007 |
| 6 | Renal cell carcinoma: ESMO Clinical Practice Guideline for diagnosis, treatment and follow-up | T. Powles, Laurence Albigès, Axel Bex, Éva Compérat, Viktor Grünwald, Ravindran Kanesvaran, H. Kitamura, R. McKay, Camillo Porta, G. Procopio, Manuela Schmidinger, Cristina Suárez, Jeremy Yuen‐Chun Teoh, Guillermo de Velasco, Matthew R. Young, Silke Gillessen | T. Powles | Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom | Annals of Oncology | 170 | 10.1016/j.annonc.2024.05.537 |
| 7 | ctDNA-based molecular residual disease and survival in resectable colorectal cancer | Yoshiaki Nakamura, Jun Watanabe, Naoya Akazawa, Keiji Hirata, Kozo Kataoka, Mitsuru Yokota, Kentaro Kato, Masahito Kotaka, Yoshinori Kagawa, Kun‐Huei Yeh, Saori Mishima, Hiroki Yukami, Koji Ando, Masaaki Miyo, Toshihiro Misumi, Kentaro Yamazaki, Hiromichi Ebi, Kenji Okita, Atsushi Hamabe, Hiroki Sokuoka, Satoshi Kobayashi, George Laliotis, Vasily N. Aushev, Shruti Sharma, Adham Jurdi, Minetta C. Liu, Alexey Aleshin, Matthew Rabinowitz, Hideaki Bando, Hiroya Taniguchi, Ichiro Takemasa, Takeshi Kato, Daisuke Kotani, Masaki Mori, Takayuki Yoshino, Eiji Oki | Takayuki Yoshino, Eiji Oki | National Cancer Center Hospital East, Japan | Nature Medicine | 144 | 10.1038/s41591-024-03254-6 |
| 8 | Emerging trends and hot topics in the application of multi-omics in drug discovery: A bibliometric and visualized study | Ziheng Wang, Yang Zhao, Lin Zhang | Lin Zhang | Monash Health, Australia | Current Pharmaceutical Analysis | 137 | 10.1016/j.cpan.2024.12.001 |
| 9 | Origins and impact of extrachromosomal DNA | Chris Bailey, Oriol Pich, Kerstin Thol, Thomas B. K. Watkins, Jens Luebeck, Andrew Rowan, Georgia Stavrou, Natasha E. Weiser, Bhargavi Dameracharla, Robert B. Bentham, Wei-Ting Lu, Jeanette Kittel, S.Y. Cindy Yang, Brooke E. Howitt, N. Sharma, Maria Litovchenko, Roberto Salgado, King L. Hung, Alex J. Cornish, David A. Moore, Richard S. Houlston, Vineet Bafna, Howard Y. Chang, Serena Nik‐Zainal, Nnennaya Kanu, Nicholas McGranahan, J. C. Ambrose, Paramasivam Arumugam, R. Bevers, Marta Bleda, F. Boardman-Pretty, C. R. Boustred, Helen Brittain, Matthew A. Brown, M. J. Caulfield, G. C. Chan, Adam Giess, John N. Griffin, Angela Hamblin, Seton Henderson, Tim Hubbard, Robert W. Jackson, L. J. Jones, D. Kasperaviciute, Melis Kayikci, A. Kousathanas, L. Lahnstein, A. Lakey, S. E. A. Leigh, Ivone Leong, F. J. Lopez, F. Maleady-Crowe, Meriel McEntagart, Federico Minneci, Jonathan S. Mitchell, L. Moutsianas, Melanie Mueller, Nirupa Murugaesu, Anna C. Need, Peter O’Donovan, Christopher A. Odhams, Christine Patch, D. Perez-Gil, M. B. Pereira, J. Pullinger, T. Rahim, A. Rendon, Tim Rogers, K. Savage, K. Sawant, Richard H. Scott, Afshan Siddiq, A. Sieghart, Sean Smith, A. Sosinsky, A. Stuckey, M. Tanguy, Ana Lisa Taylor Tavares, Elaine Thomas, S. R. Thompson, Arianna Tucci, M. J. Welland, Eric O. Williams, Kate Witkowska, S. M. Wood, Magdalena Zarowiecki, Adrienne M. Flanagan, Paul S. Mischel, Mariam Jamal‐Hanjani, Charles Swanton | Paul S. Mischel, Mariam Jamal‐Hanjani, Charles Swanton | The Francis Crick Institute, United States | Nature | 134 | 10.1038/s41586-024-08107-3 |
| 10 | Tumour evolution and microenvironment interactions in 2D and 3D space | Chia-Kuei Mo, Jingxian Liu, Siqi Chen, Erik Storrs, André Luiz N. Targino da Costa, Andrew Houston, Michael C. Wendl, Reyka G. Jayasinghe, Michael D. Iglesia, Cong Ma, John M. Herndon, Austin N. Southard-Smith, Xinhao Liu, Jacqueline L. Mudd, Alla Y. Karpova, Andrew Shinkle, S. Peter Goedegebuure, Abdurrahman Abdelzaher, Bo Peng, Lauren Fulghum, S. P. Livingston, Metin Balaban, Angela Hill, Joseph E. Ippolito, Vésteinn Thórsson, Jason M. Held, Ian S. Hagemann, Eric H. Kim, Peter O. Bayguinov, Albert H. Kim, Mary Mullen, Kooresh I. Shoghi, Tao Ju, Melissa A. Reimers, Cody Weimholt, Liang‐I Kang, Sidharth V. Puram, Deborah V. Novack, Russell K. Pachynski, Katherine C. Fuh, Milan G. Chheda, William E. Gillanders, Ryan C. Fields, Benjamin J. Raphael, Feng Chen, Li Ding | William E. Gillanders, Ryan C. Fields, Benjamin J. Raphael, Feng Chen, Li Ding | Washington University in St. Louis, United States | Nature | 129 | 10.1038/s41586-024-08087-4 |
| 11 | The genomic landscape of 2,023 colorectal cancers | Alex J. Cornish, Andreas Gruber, Ben Kinnersley, Daniel Chubb, Anna Frangou, Giulio Caravagna, Boris Noyvert, Eszter Lakatos, Henry M. Wood, S. Thorn, Richard Culliford, Claudia Arnedo-Pac, Jacob Househam, William Cross, Amit Sud, Philip Law, Máire Ní Leathlobhair, Aliah Hawari, Connor E. Woolley, Kitty Sherwood, Nathalie Feeley, Güler Gül, Juan Fernández‐Tajes, Luís Zapata, Ludmil B. Alexandrov, Nirupa Murugaesu, Alona Sosinsky, Jonathan Mitchell, Núria López-Bigas, Philip Quirke, David N. Church, Ian Tomlinson, Andrea Sottoriva, Trevor A. Graham, David C. Wedge, Richard S. Houlston | Ian Tomlinson | Institute of Cancer Research, United Kingdom | Nature | 118 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07747-9 |
| 12 | ClinVar: updates to support classifications of both germline and somatic variants | Melissa Landrum, Shanmuga Chitipiralla, Kuljeet Kaur, Garth Brown, Chao Chen, Jennifer Hart, Douglas Hoffman, Wonhee Jang, Chunlei Liu, Zenith Maddipatla, Rama Maiti, Joseph S. B. Mitchell, Tayebeh Rezaie, George Riley, Guangfeng Song, Jinpeng Yang, Lora Ziyabari, Andrew Russette, B Kattman | Melissa Landrum | National Institutes of Health, United States | Nucleic Acids Research | 117 | 10.1093/nar/gkae1090 |
| 13 | A pan-cancer analysis of the microbiome in metastatic cancer | Thomas Battaglia, Iris Mimpen, Joleen J.H. Traets, Arne van Hoeck, Laurien J. Zeverijn, Birgit S. Geurts, Gijs F. de Wit, Michaël Noë, Ingrid Hofland, Joris L. Vos, Sten Cornelissen, Maartje Alkemade, Annegien Broeks, Charlotte L. Zuur, Edwin Cuppen, Lodewyk F.A. Wessels, Joris van de Haar, Emile E. Voest | Emile E. Voest, Joris van de Haar, Lodewyk F.A. Wessels | The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Netherlands | Cell | 116 | 10.1016/j.cell.2024.03.021 |
| 14 | Assessing GPT-4 for cell type annotation in single-cell RNA-seq analysis | Wenpin Hou, Zhicheng Ji | Wenpin Hou, Zhicheng Ji | Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, United States | Nature Methods | 115 | 10.1038/s41592-024-02235-4 |
| 15 | Insights for precision oncology from the integration of genomic and clinical data of 13,880 tumors from the 100,000 Genomes Cancer Programme | Alona Sosinsky, John C. Ambrose, William Cross, Clare Turnbull, Shirley Henderson, J. Louise Jones, Angela Hamblin, Prabhu Arumugam, G. C. Chan, Daniel Chubb, Boris Noyvert, Jonathan Mitchell, Susan Walker, Katy Bowman, Dorota Pasko, M. B. Pereira, Nadezda Volkova, Antonio Rueda-Martin, D. Perez-Gil, Javier Ferreiros, J. Pullinger, Afshan Siddiq, Tala Zainy, Tasnim Choudhury, Olena Yavorska, Tom Fowler, David Bentley, Clare Kingsley, Sandra Hing, Zandra C. Deans, Augusto Rendon, Sue Hill, Mark J. Caulfield, Nirupa Murugaesu | Mark J. Caulfield, Nirupa Murugaesu | University of Westminster, United Kingdom | Nature Medicine | 104 | 10.1038/s41591-023-02682-0 |
| 16 | Prognostic genome and transcriptome signatures in colorectal cancers | Luís Nunes, Fuqiang Li, Meizhen Wu, Tian Luo, Klara Hammarström, Emma Torell, Ingrid Ljuslinder, Artur Mezheyeuski, Per‐Henrik Edqvist, Anna Löfgren Burström, Carl Zingmark, Sofia Edin, Chatarina Larsson, Lucy Mathot, Erik Osterman, Emerik Österlund, Viktor Ljungström, Inês Neves, Nicole Yacoub, Unnur Guðnadóttir, Helgi Birgisson, Malin Enblad, Fredrik Pontén, Richard Palmqvist, Xun Xu, Mathias Uhlén, Kui Wu, Bengt Glimelius, Cong Lin, Tobias Sjöblom | Kui Wu, Bengt Glimelius, Cong Lin, Tobias Sjöblom | Uppsala University, China | Nature | 103 | 10.1038/s41586-024-07769-3 |
| 17 | Single-cell and spatial transcriptomics analysis of non-small cell lung cancer | Marco De Zuani, Haoliang Xue, Jun Sung Park, Stefan C. Dentro, Zaira Seferbekova, Julien Tessier, Sandra Curras-Alonso, Angela Hadjipanayis, Emmanouil Athanasiadis, Moritz Gerstung, Omer Ali Bayraktar, Ana Cvejic | Ana Cvejic | Wellcome Sanger Institute, Denmark | Nature Communications | 102 | 10.1038/s41467-024-48700-8 |
| 18 | MYC targeting by OMO-103 in solid tumors: a phase 1 trial | Elena Garralda, Marie-Ève Beaulieu, Víctor Moreno, Sílvia Casacuberta‐Serra, Sandra Martínez-Martín, Laia Foradada, Guzmán Alonso, Daniel Massó-Vallés, Sergio López‐Estévez, Toni Jauset, E. Corral de la Fuente, Bernard Doger, Tatiana Hernández, Raquel Pérez-López, Oriol Arqués, Virginia Castillo Cano, Josefa Ruíz Morales, Jonathan R. Whitfield, Manuela Niewel, Laura Soucek, Emiliano Calvo | Laura Soucek | Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology, Spain | Nature Medicine | 94 | 10.1038/s41591-024-02805-1 |
| 19 | Priming agents transiently reduce the clearance of cell-free DNA to improve liquid biopsies | Carmen Martin-Alonso, Shervin Tabrizi, Kan Xiong, Timothy Blewett, Sainetra Sridhar, Andjela Crnjac, Sahil Patel, Zhenyi An, Ahmet Bekdemir, Douglas Shea, Shih‐Ting Wang, Sergio A. Rodriguez‐Aponte, Christopher A. Naranjo, Justin Rhoades, Jesse D. Kirkpatrick, Heather E. Fleming, Ava P. Amini, Todd R. Golub, J. Christopher Love, Sangeeta N. Bhatia, Viktor A. Adalsteinsson | Shervin Tabrizi, J. Christopher Love, Sangeeta N. Bhatia, Viktor A. Adalsteinsson | Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States | Science | 94 | 10.1126/science.adf2341 |
| 20 | A deep-learning framework to predict cancer treatment response from histopathology images through imputed transcriptomics | Danh-Tai Hoang, Gal Dinstag, Eldad D. Shulman, Leandro C. Hermida, Doreen S. Ben-Zvi, Efrat Elis, Katherine Caley, Stephen‐John Sammut, Sanju Sinha, Neelam Sinha, Christopher H. Dampier, Chani Stossel, Tejas Patil, Arun Rajan, Wiem Lassoued, Julius Strauss, Shania Bailey, Clint Allen, Jason M. Redman, Tuvik Beker, Peng Jiang, Talia Golan, Scott Wilkinson, Adam G. Sowalsky, Sharon R. Pine, Carlos Caldas, James L. Gulley, Kenneth Aldape, Ranit Aharonov, Eric A. Stone, Eytan Ruppin | Danh-Tai Hoang, Eric A. Stone, Eytan Ruppin | Australian National University, Australia | Nature Cancer | 88 | 10.1038/s43018-024-00793-2 |

## Topic trends

### What Topics Define the Class of 2026?

The word cloud of canonical topics across the 50 highest 18-month-cited papers in cancer genomics and diagnostics reveals a field oriented toward integrative, clinically actionable molecular characterization rather than single-modality assays. Tumor microenvironment biology stands out as the most frequently mentioned canonical topic, appearing in 17 of 50 papers (normalized frequency 0.34), reflecting growing emphasis on immune contexture, stromal interactions, and spatially resolved profiling alongside genomic readouts. Digital pathology (15 mentions), precision medicine (14), circulating tumor DNA (14), and copy number variation (13) form a second tier of dominant themes, signaling convergence between tissue genomics, liquid biopsy, and image-based diagnostics. Larger type further highlights whole-genome sequencing, liquid biopsy, somatic mutations, colorectal cancer, transcriptomics, and immune checkpoint inhibition—topics that cluster around comprehensive profiling pipelines and therapy selection. Smaller but visible terms—including spatial transcriptomics, multi-omics analysis, microsatellite instability, and genomic profiling—suggest that influential 2024 publications increasingly frame cancer diagnostics as multi-layered data integration problems spanning DNA, RNA, imaging, and clinical outcome endpoints.

*Leading research themes*

### How Did Topics Shift from the Class of 2025 to the Class of 2026?

Comparing normalized concept frequencies between the Class of 2025 (2023 publications) and Class of 2026 (2024 publications) cohorts shows a clear reorientation of early-high-impact research priorities. Whole-genome sequencing exhibited the largest gain (+0.12 normalized frequency; 4 versus 10 papers), followed by precision medicine (+0.10; 6 versus 11), with additional increases for tumor microenvironment, copy number variation, colorectal cancer, and microsatellite instability. The topic evolution card underscores that Class of 2026 bars extend furthest for tumor microenvironment, precision medicine, whole-genome sequencing, and colorectal cancer—topics aligned with population-scale sequencing, multi-cohort genomics, and precision oncology infrastructure. Conversely, several themes prominent in the Class of 2025 cohort receded: tumor evolution (−0.16), non-small cell lung cancer (−0.14), liquid biopsy (−0.14), cancer progression (−0.12), circulating tumor DNA (−0.10), and prognosis (−0.08). Somatic mutations, transcriptomics, and biomarker mentions remained prevalent but showed modest relative declines versus newer risers. Together, these shifts suggest that the most-cited 2024 papers emphasize comprehensive genomic platforms, tumor–immune biology, and disease-specific large-cohort studies, while lung-cancer-focused liquid biopsy and prognostic framing lost ground among early-high-impact work.

*How topics shifted year over year*

## Cite this ranking

```
Pepkio Research Index (PRI). Topics and Trends in Most Cited Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Papers, Class of 2026. https://pri.pepkio.com/top-papers/cancer-genomics-and-diagnostics/2026. Accessed 2026-07-14.

Zheng Su, Tinsley Li, Thematic Shifts in Early-High-Impact Cancer Genomics and Diagnostics Research: A Bibliometric and Semantic Analysis. bioRxiv 2026.07.04.736459; doi: https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.07.04.736459
```